For the past several months, I have had the privilege of working with a talented group of educators at Loyola University Maryland. Our team had a big dream: we wanted to put on an edcamp, but not just any edcamp. We decided we wanted our edcamp to focus on educational technology and its applications in the classroom. As a member of the Howard County cohort of Loyola’s Educational Technology Master’s Program, this idea appealed greatly to me. It was a different angle that we hoped would attract a group of passionate educators -- and Edcamp Loyola (#EdcampLoyola17) achieved just that.
Attending an edcamp as both a volunteer and an eager participant is not easy. While the Big Board quickly filled with topics from Green Screen Training to Video Conferencing, I was working the registration tables and helping to set up the green screen area. While I wasn’t able to have direct input in Big Board sessions, there was definitely a wide variety of exceptional edtech topics. As official Tweeter of the day, I got to see most of the sessions underway, and I am not sure I have ever seen a more active group of edcampers. In the majority of the rooms I visited, there were spirited discussions with multiple educators participating and sharing experiences. I paused to listen to as many of these as I could, and I was blown away by the depth of experiences being shared.
The one session I spent the entire time in was Breakout EDU. I had always wanted to try a session like this, but I had never had the chance. While I understood the basic concept, actually participating in one showed me how amazingly complex it was and how much collaboration and teamwork was necessary to complete it successfully -- which we sadly did not. I left, however, with ideas swimming in my brain about how I could incorporate a Breakout session in my own classroom. And I’m not the only one who had visions of classroom applications dancing through his head. The chorus I kept hearing from participants all day was how excited they were to try a new lesson, a new tool, or a new platform in their classroom. This vibe fueled us all day, and before we knew it, the day was coming to a close.
Of course, the end of the day is one of the most exciting parts of the day for many edcampers. With a number of generous sponsors, participants had the chance to win opportunities to try tools donated to us. I want to take a moment to list all the fantastic sponsors we had on the day. We couldn’t have done it without you! Follow these fantastic folks on Twitter for the latest updates:
- Edcamp Foundation (@EdcampUSA)
- IPevo (@ipevo)
- SoftChalk (@SoftChalk)
- Flipgrid (@Flipgrid)
- TechSmith (@TechSmith)
- VoiceThread (@voicethread)
- Seesaw (@Seesaw)
- Smore (@SmorePages)
- EMaze (@emaze_tweets)
- Kahoot! (@GetKahoot)
- Breakout EDU (@breakoutEDU)
- GoNoodle (@GoNoodle)
- Swivl (@goswivl)
- Nearpod (@nearpod)
- EDpuzzle (@EDpuzzle)
- Northrop Grumman (@northropgrumman)
Loyola’s School of Education and Educational Technology Program deserve huge props for putting on such a fabulous edcamp experiences, and Dr. David Marcovitz (@DavidMarcovitz), Dr. Kelly Keane (@kellyjanekeane), and Ms. Irene Bal (@ireneamelia1) deserve a standing ovation for pioneering this day. I cannot wait until next year to see how they expand it and make it even better (which is hard to imagine). For pictures from the day, check out our Storify and search #EdcampLoyola17 on Twitter.
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| EdcampLoyola Planning Committee. Photo Credit: Dr. Kelly Jane Keane. |
